No evidence Pa. fugitive stabbed himself to death, coroner says

PHILADELPHIA — Brad Stone’s lifeless body sat in the woods near his Pennsburg, Pa., home for at least 12 hours before police found it Tuesday, but how the mass killer died remains a mystery, the Montgomery County coroner said Wednesday.

A preliminary autopsy showed Stone did not die of self-inflicted stab wounds, said Montgomery County Coroner Walter Hofman, and an official cause of death is still pending a toxicology report.

Still, detectives uncovered a gruesome tableau upon finding Stone’s body. According to Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele, the items found near the corpse included two medicine bottles, one containing a white powder; an energy drink with powder on the lip; and a large-handled machete and doubled-bladed black ax, both coated in blood.

The only injury that medical examiners discovered, Hofman said, was a “limited injury” to Stone’s left leg — and one that didn’t cause his death.

The coroner said the leg wound was not a gunshot wound, but he would not elaborate on the type of injury.

On Tuesday, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman had said Stone apparently died of self-inflicted cutting wounds to the center of his body.

Steele said the leg wound was about 7 centimeters deep. But if it had been ruled out as a cause of death, he said, the toxicology report or other items near the corpse might shed light.

“If the stab wound isn’t the cause of death,” he said, “then you look to other possibilities based on the evidence around the scene.”

Stone, an Iraq war veteran, was the subject of a 32-hour manhunt after a killing spree Monday that left his ex-wife and five of her relatives dead in their homes in Lansdale, Souderton and Harleysville.

He was found dead Tuesday afternoon about half a mile from his Pennsburg home.